Good girl. Keep on top of them!!! Keep us updated. Sometimes you have to fight your battles with your doc. You have to look at are you truly overreacting or do you have a situation that really warrants attention. I think your situation needs to be given attention. It is so serious. Even after my first I didn't realize how serious it was. I mean I know how sick I got, that I wasn't moved for 4 days, that a nurse sat in my room to watch me continuously for 2 days. But my baby was never in danger. They kept telling me I was the one that was sick.

Then I was pregnant with Sara. I was sick the entire time. I was so worried about her coming out deformed because I was on meds early with her. I would ask my ob about it. He said generally it is safe in pregnancy but they don't exactly hold medical trials on it because of ethical issues. Then I was getting sicker and sicker. She started having signs of distress. I always thought that babies died because they were early. That is not the case. There have been quite a few babies here in the last year that died and they were 34 plus weeks. Now I know what the risks are. You can go to l&d a thousand times and everything can be ok. BUT what if it were the one time that things were not right? That last week that I was pregnant, I was on the phone or in my ob's office every day. I had a NST the day before she was born. Those are supposed to assure fetal well being for 3-4 days (this would have gotten me to my next appt 3 days later). But guess what, not even 24 hours later, Sara had late decels on the NST. They say that is omnimous in pregnancy articles. She had to come out that day. Her BPP was reassuring but her heartrate on the NST was not. I often think about what if I did not have a peri appt that day. Because I was like you. I didn't want to bother my dr, surely he had patients worse than me at his office. I just didn't realize that something could happen to my baby. I thought that happened to other people. Then when they induced, she had decels then too and had me roll on my side and had oxygen throughout labor which made her heartrate come back up. It can happen to you. I bet every one of the women that have lost a baby thought it wouldn't happen to them. So if you have to push and push, do it. Apologize if I am coming off too strong for you, just want to emphasize that this is deadly serious. You know what, I WAS the patient that my ob was worried about. I was the one that was one of the worst in his office.

If I could go back in time and change the way that I did both pregnancies. I would have listened to my drs. Meaning as soon as they said bedrest, I would have been done. I fully intend to follow my ob's instructions and will call him whenever something is wrong next time. (Hard to do now that I am not pregnant because I know he has preggos to deal with.) He'll probably have my number memorized on his pager. Even now that I am not pregnant, he tells me to call him about ANY questions, concerns, or issues. When I call, he gives me an answer. I just get really sad when I see someone and we say go go go and then they have a bad outcome. But you are staying on top of things and keep doing it. If you need a push, let us know. We'll be glad to kick you in the butt and get you going. In fact, Shannon kicked mine the other day, lol.

Thank you again.
I honestly wouldn't be going back to the hospital on my own, like I said I had no idea how serious this really is.

I called the Doctor again this morning and told the nurse about my headaches that won't go away, she said that there is nothing she can do, but for me to go back to L&D again to get assessed, so again I will go.

Fiona is absolutely right. It is the indidual that taking care of you, not neccessarily the country you are in. I personally feel that my dr was awful with Kirsten and I think it was wrong of her to not talk to me and pass me off to on call docs when she admitted me. She didn't even check on me till I signed out AMA. That being said, there was a dr that was there that everyone loved. Unfortunately by the time I got pregnant, she had moved to Paris. I got stuck with the dr that I had. In the states, there are a lot of bad drs too. My daughter's first ped was one of them. It really depends on the relationship that you have with them. If I call my dr's office they know I am calling for a reason. Someone in my ob's office told me recently that they know who the complainers are and who are not the complainers. Meaning they know who calls about every little thing and those that call because they need to be calling and I wasn't one of their complainers. Made me feel good about that. My drs also understand what happened with my first child now that they have the records. It's one thing to tell them and a totally different thing for them to see it in black and white you being passed from doc to doc.

You just need to keep an eye on yourself and if you feel something is wrong, go get checked out. You can go a thousand times to L&D and nothing be wrong, but what if it were the one time that something was wrong???

Nope not pregnant now. :) I'm planning to try at the end of next year, but for now just enjoying my 8 month old. I need to make contigency plans and get them in action first. My ob has told me exactly what to expect and I want to make sure that it is least stress that I can have at the time - meaning no travel for work period, no classes, need to get short term disability, need to save some mulah for bedrest, and want my baby to be a little older first. Would love to, but not the right time or place for me. :)

Oh and chronic hypertension is htn in someone that shows up before 20 weeks and may or may not go away after delivery. My htn showed up very early with Sara. It just kept going up and up and up. After delivery, it came down but is still higher than it is supposed to be off meds. Therefore I am on a low dose of Ziac (BP Med). The plan for next time is I will probably be comanaged by my ob and peri. Not sure when I will start seeing the peri, depends on my pressures. My ob has now stated after getting my records from Kirsten that he will be treating me very aggressively. I can only imagine what that means as I thought he was aggressive the last time. With Sara my treatment was appts every two weeks till 26 weeks. Then started seeing the peri every two weeks and the ob every week. I was supposed to start seeing the peri every week starting at 34 weeks but delivered at the next visit. [:D] I had an US, bpp, nst, doppler blood flow studies every two weeks till 34 weeks, then weekly. I had instructions of a bp cutoff to call my ob with. I was also to call him any day or night with headaches that would not go away, contractions, bleeding, leaking, etc. He would adjust the meds. Went on modified bedrest most of the pregnancy, which meant, I could go to work, but when not working, I was to be in bed. Went to a part time schedule at 26 weeks, 3 days in the office, 2 days work at home in bed on my laptop. Then at 30 weeks went on strict bedrest was not supposed to be out of bed period. I figure he means by being more aggressive, he means strict bedrest earlier, more appts, more of the us, bpp, and nst (which I am going to request more NST because of the situation with decels, scared me to death!). I am going to ask him if I can fax in my bps weekly then when I go to weekly appts probably will call in with my readings each day. As far as meds, my pcp is handling that for now, but in case of an oopsie (not likely to happen because I am on TWO bcp because of irregularity and pain issues), it should be ok for 1st trimester. My ob has requested that I please see him before I try so he can regulate my meds, run baseline bw, and urine.

it's just not possible to tell this way whether you are borderline for pe - certainly your BP is high for you and the unexplained headaches continue to concern me. I'm glad to hear that your blood panels were clear.

As to the standard of your care, I have spent long enough on these boards to know that whatever the various merits of different healthecare systems , it comes down to the individuals involved in your care, and that I'm afraid, is nothing to do with what country you are in.

You are educating yourself, you know what to watch for. Make the Drs go through their assessment in detail, ask the right questions and don't allow then to fob you off.

We are not doctors, and we can't diagnose or assess if you are ill; we can just point you in the right direction and encourage you to be your own advocate. Something which you seem to be doing very well. Keep on watching yourself carefully.

Had another day at the LD, woke up with a bad headache and back to the hospital I go.
I am so sick of this, they keep telling me that I am fine and send me home again.
The BP has been fine, problem is that I have these headaches that showed up in the last week and they wonÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t go away.
My whole pregnancy I have never complained of any headaches, my blood pressure when I am not pregnant is usually around 110/65.

Fiona- I did talk to them about doing the 24-hour urine test, the nurse told me to ask my Doctor on Thursday. As far as blood work goes, I had that done this past Thursday and the results were good.
I am showing traces of protein in the urine, but nothing dramatic. (At least they donÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t see anything wrong with that).

I will keep on taking your advice and going back there every time.
The Doctor on call did prescribe me some Tylenol # 3, but I donÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t want to keep on drugging myself, so I donÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t think I will even get it filled.

As far as migraines goes, about 1 Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â½ year ago when I first moved to Calgary I had episodes of migraines, but that was because of the altitude here as I was not used to it.
Finally after a few months they went away and never came back, so to think that they are back now is a little hard to believe.

You Guys are really educating me about this PE deal.
I was told that women usually had it in their first pregnancies and that was it, but I see that it hasnÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t been the case with you Ladies.
At least you had your US Doctor that was taking care of you Sabrina, thank Goodness for that.
I was telling my husband today that had we been in the States I would have been taken more seriously, but what can I do?
The world thinks that we have the best healthcare system in the world here, but I have lived in other countries as well and donÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t agree with it.
I rather pay, but fell safe.

I thought PE was dangerous to the Mother, but you guys are telling me that Babies can die too.

Do you guys think that I am borderline PE?
I thought that you had to have high blood pressure and a lot of protein in the urine for that.

Thank you so much Ladies for your support on this.
I feel like you guys know more than what I hear here.
Cheers,
Adri

I went on meds with Sara at 17 weeks. I got pregnant and it just kept going up and up and up. I am still on a low dose of medicine. With my first (she was born in Belgium and I think the health care is similar to Britain and Canada as it is a social insurance system), my ob did not take it seriously. However, since we were US military, I was also followed by US military OB's who just checked to make sure the Belgian ob's were doing what they were supposed to, answer questions, etc. It was the military drs that were having a fit saying that I needed to be in the hospital. They even went so far as to be secretly testing my urine in their office on their own because they were so concerned. Unfortunately those tests are not in my medical chart to document when I started spilling the protein. There was some military rule that they were not supposed to do that and my dr went and swiped test strips from the lab one day so she could test me. I know it sounds stupid. My belgian ob didn't take it seriously until the military drs started to apply pressure on her, were sending me to the hospital every 5 mins for NST (my belgian ob NEVER even ordered one), and having me get checked out every 5 minutes. Yes it was a pain and I thought again. The hospital was an hour away. I went through this thing where they would be like why are you here. I would say the military drs sent me here for a NST and I have high bp and protein in the urine. They would test the urine, give me a NST, and then send me home on bedrest (which I ignored because I thought it was a big waste of my time). Finally my ob admitted me when it was obvious something was wrong, vision loss, upper quandrant pain (she then told me oh that's your liver), high bp, and protein. So always go get checked. I mean even with Sara, I didn't do what I was supposed to do. I should have been into l&d a lot more than I was. I even had the MW tell me at 32 weeks that I had better be calling them if even the littlest thing was wrong and not to be calling that office because I didn't want to go to Children's. My ob did the same thing. He was like call call call call, I'll decide if it is nothing. BUT I was BAD. Cause I only called if my bp was seriously high or something was really wrong. Don't be like me. You don't need that stress. If you have to go to l&d a thousand times it is absolutely worth it. You shouldn't be worried about what they think. I think the next time I get pregnant, my ob is going to have my number memorized because I will be calling for certain things. I realize now how dangerous the disease is. I didn't realize that till the day Sara was born. I had read about babies dying (but in my head they were early and that was why). There have been full term babies that have died too. When Sara had decels on the NST that day and decels during labor. That is when I realized that even almost full term babies can die. Take care of yourself and be proactive!

To answer your question, in my first pregnancy I developed preeclampsia (p/e) at 24 weeks and was put on bedrest and spent 13 weeks on bedrest until I delivered. In my 2nd pregnancy my bp started acting up early on and I was medicated and they just kept upping the dosage until neither medicine nor bedrest was working...thank goodness I was right at 37 weeks when that happened.

I certainly agree w/Cassie & Fiona...Go in and be checked sooner than Thursday. At this point your pressures aren't so great and the only way to get a true protein reading is that 24 hour urine. Things can progress so quickly for some women.

I have had two pregnancies in Britain and one in Canada - similar systems, but very different to the US. My Canadian OB was amazing, and I can't praise him high enough - but I know I was on a slightly different track with him because I was high risk.

There are a couple of things that concern me about your post:

1) the headache - as I said BP is not necessarily the only indicator that something is wrong. Are you prone to migraines? Are you eating and drinking enough?

2) In my non-medical opinion, you shouldn't be doing your own protein dipsticks. As I said, it's a woefully unreliable way of measuring protein.

Baseline tests are done in order to establish what your level of protein is and how your liver is functioning - as your pregnancy progresses, these are repeated to measure if you are getting worse.

Pre-eclampsia is officially diagnosed by two separate readings of 140/90 plus protein in excess of 300.

The only caveat to the BP is whether you normally have high BP outside of pregnancy - in which case you'll be allowed to run higher than women with normally low BP.

If you don't need to be seen before Thursday, I would urge you to have a very frank discussion with your OB and ask for the 24hr urine and blood work.

But if the headache persists, I would just go into L&D - and don't phone first.